Tamarac Smoothes Out Path For Delay-plagued Developers

TAMARAC — The City Council has given final approval to several measures city officials are hoping will improve the image of Tamarac as a place to build.

City officials say enticing new development will increase Tamarac`s tax base and ease the tax burden on homeowners.

The measures are aimed at speeding up the review and approval of projects by the city, and a key step toward that end was taken with council approval on Monday of a Plan Adjustment Committee.

The committee will have the authority to approve ``minor adjustments`` sought by developers to site plans that have already been reviewed by city staff and the Planning Commission and approved by the council.

Developers seeking such changes had been required to submit revised plans to city staff for review, and have the changes approved by the council.

The new committee wasted no time getting down to work. It met on Tuesday and voted to allow the Tree House apartments to add a security gate and the Spyglass Condominiums to put down an asphalt apron adjacent to its recreation building.

In the second step taken by the council on Monday, the membership of the Planning Commission was expanded from five to seven, and the commission was given the work formerly handled by the Beautification Committee.

The Beautification Committee, which reviewed site plans for conformance to city landscaping and sign requirements, was dissolved in a related move by the council.

When first proposed several weeks ago, the changes were described by Mayor Bernie Hart as an effort to ``streamline`` the development approval process and respond to complaints from developers that the process took too long and was too costly.

City Planner Thelma Brown said developers can expect an answer within two weeks to requests for minor adjustments in site plans. That often took three months, and in one case, four months, under the old system, she said.

Exactly what constitutes ``minor adjustments`` is not spelled out in the ordinance creating the Plan Adjustment Committee.

Deciding whether a requested change is minor will be left to the discretion of the committee, Brown said.

In addition to Brown, Vice Mayor Sydney Stein, City Engineer Bill Greenwood and Bob Jahn, the chief building official, sit on the committee.

A site plan change can be approved only by a unanimous vote of the committee.

Lacking a unanimous vote, the requested change will be sent to the council, where a majority vote can approve site plan revisions.